Iwan Baan on Light and the Louvre Lens

Most architects are familiar with the work of Iwan Baan, the eminent photographer who has documented some of the most famous buildings of our time. But what you may not know is that Baan had not originally intended to photograph architecture. Had it not been for a chance meeting with Rem Koolhaas, things may have turned out quite differently.

In the video above, Baan speaks with ERCO at the Louvre Lens, a SANAA-designed offshoot of the Paris Louvre located in a small mining town in the north of France. As he traipses around the museum's campus, he speaks about everything from his approach to photography (one that is less wrapped up in architecture than you might think) to the importance and transformative properties of light .

"Photography," he says, "can exist under any kind of light condition." Indeed, his photograph of a blacked-out New York following Hurricane Sandy, his most famous, is powerful exactly for its absence of light.

And for more information on the Louvre Lens museum, check out the video below, in which international engineering firm Arup discusses the challenge of designing for constant daylight.